


Weddings, Parties, Anything

by orphan_account



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Strangers at a Wedding AU, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 08:30:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3403913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caitlin meets an interesting stranger at her college roommate's wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weddings, Parties, Anything

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own The Flash or any of its characters yaddayaddayadda. Unbeta'd and stuff. All mistakes are 100% mine.
> 
> AU. A little back story (just in case it isn't clear): Caitlin and Ronnie work together but are not romantically tied.
> 
> As a side note, this is my very first attempt at writing for this fandom. Also, I would like to dedicate this to the wonderful Steff. Just 'cuz. Here's to things getting better!

It didn’t help that she arrived a half an hour late to Celia’s wedding, but in the end it didn’t make a difference. The girls her former roommate had chosen to stand beside her were all practically strangers to Caitlin, and she’d never been particularly good around new people.

But it was an afternoon filled with excitement and enchantment and laughter, and Celia, with her long auburn hair and sparkling green eyes, looked more beautiful than anyone ought to, so she pushed aside her own discomfort for the sake of an old friend. One day of feeling lonely didn’t equal the end of the world, and what better place to feel alone than at a wedding?

 

“You look like you’re having a blast. Don’t you feel like joining the other bridesmaids in… whatever it is they’re doing?” The stranger said with a laugh.

Caitlin smiled tiredly at the stranger. “They’re setting up for the bouquet/garter thing. And no, not in the mood for any reindeer games right now, I’m afraid.”

He took the seat directly across from hers. She frowned. When did she invite him to sit?

“The groom’s sister is my ex-girlfriend,” he said then, as though he sensed her discomfort. “And it is not a pretty situation. Do you mind if I hang out with you?”

“You’re just going to avoid her?” She asked, arms crossed and eyebrow raised.

He raised his hands defensively. “Hey. Whatever avoids causing a scene at one of my oldest friend’s wedding.”

Caitlin nodded, turning her attention to the group of women gathered around Celia on the dance floor. Celia’s cousin Aimee motioned for her to come join them, but she just smiled and waved them off. She was drained and frankly, quite tired of being left out.

“So what are you avoiding, hmm? Fun?”

She shrugged. She didn’t have to explain herself to a complete stranger. She didn’t even know his name. Still, the truth poured out before she could help it.

She told him about having lived with Celia for years in college, but that they’d fallen out of touch for a few years until she was asked to be a part of the wedding. She’d agreed before she realized what she was doing, and as it turned out, time had changed them both. While she was happy for her friend, there was this unidentifiable shift that had occurred between them.

The whole day had been spent forcing laughter at jokes she didn’t understand and listening to stories about people she didn’t know.

“What about you?” She asked, shifting the focus of conversation. She’d never been comfortable with attention, especially for prolonged periods of time. “What’s your deal? What possessed you to date your oldest friend’s sister? I mean, that doesn’t really sound like a good idea.”

He laughed, but it didn’t necessarily sound all that happy. It sounded vacant and far away. “I don’t know. I guess she did. I don’t really remember the details, if I’m being honest. It wasn’t that serious. And Paolo still doesn’t know a thing about it so if you could keep it on the D.L., it’d be much appreciated.”

“Oh, come on. Other than Celia, you’re the only other person here I’ve spoken to tonight. Who am I going to tell?”

He laughed again, and this time there was warmth in his smile. “I’m Cisco, by the way. Sorry. I don’t think I introduced myself earlier.”

“Caitlin.”

“Caitlin. Nice,” he repeated, just as the crowd’s attention was called towards the bride and groom on the dance floor. “Wanna join in on the fun with the rest of ‘em or hit the bar now that it’s empty?”

Caitlin rose to her feet without saying a word and started making her way toward the bar, Cisco following close behind.

 

A cocktail or two later, Caitlin learned that she and Cisco had a lot more in common than she would have believed. He was incredibly smart; just about her age and just as accomplished, having already acquired a PHD in physics and engineering. And he was funny, too - not that Caitlin considered herself to be very comical herself, but it had always been hard for anyone to make her laugh. Her sense of humor was very specific, and oftentimes dismissed altogether. But she wasn’t the hardass people considered her to be, she just had barriers that were harder to penetrate than most.

She decided that she liked Cisco. He had kind eyes and a contagious laugh, and in the hour or so that they’d spoken, she’d learned quite a bit, and not just about him.

They were on their third drink, and the crowd had dispersed, strangers lingered and swayed in all corners of the room, so Caitlin suggested a walk out onto the patio for a bit. It was a chilly night, but the skies were clear and the stars were bright, and the moon casted a soft glow over the lake just a few yards away.

She may not have bought into romance, but there was something about the atmosphere and beauty of nature that she never could grow tired of. The sun and the moon, the sky and the sea… they all had a love story all their own, a fairy tale both logical and never-ending. Reliable and unpredictable at the same time.

She listened intently as Cisco explained a theory he’d been playing with about fusing together various properties, mostly of ice particles, to create a highly useful, and if executed and used correctly, nonlethal weapon.

“Are there flaws? Yeah. Obviously,” he concluded, nodding his head. “But that’s like with anything.”

“Sounds to me like the kind of thing you’d see in a comic book or something.”

Cisco grinned. “Are you trying to tell me comic books are wrong?” he asked with a lighthearted laugh. “No, I know what you mean. But think of the use value of something like that.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you,” she smiled in return. “You make a lot of good points. I don’t necessarily understand the Why, or the How if I’m being honest, but you’re innovative. That’s a good thing.”

His creativity and enthusiasm would be an incredible addition to her workplace, actually; provide them with an incredible advantage. But she wasn’t here to think about work, or worry about recruiting new scientists.

She’d had a long day, and an even longer week, and deserved a night to herself. Tonight, there was no Dr. Snow. There was just Caitlin, a young woman having a few drinks with an interesting stranger at a friend’s wedding.

“Oh, shit!” Cisco gasped, his mouth twisting into an almost pained expression. “Gia at twelve o'clock.”

“Who?”

“Gia. Paolo’s sister. My ex-girlfriend,” he explained, running a hand through his long dark hair.

“What is the deal with you two anyway? You said it wasn’t serious. How bad could this break up have been?”

“It’s just... awkward. It wasn’t working about, and she was the one who ended things, but for some reason… whenever we’re together, she’s just… I can just picture it. Alright, it’d go like, ‘ _Oh, Cisco_ ,’” he cooed dramatically, imitating a woman’s voice the best that he could. “‘ _Wouldn’t it be_ so funny _if_ we _ended up getting married?_ _Ha-ha-ha_!’”

Caitlin laughed. “There’s no way she laughs like that.”

“You’ve never met her,” he replied with a shrug of his shoulders. “Shit, shit. She’s coming outside. Has she spotted me?” he asked, turning on his heel so his back was to the door.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said, trying to be reassuring, but bit her tongue the instant the words came out. “Never mind. She totally did. She’s on her way over here now.”

“Please tell me you’re kidding-”

“Francisco?! I thought that was you! It is freezing out here. What are you doing away from the party?”

Caitlin answered for him before he had a chance to speak. “Cisco and I just wanted some… alone time. It is just so noisy in there. Isn’t it, sweetie?” she asked, nudging him playfully in the side with her elbow.

“Oh. Hi. Aren’t you one of the bridesmaid’s?” Gia asked, noticing Caitlin. She pushed a lock of dark hair away from her face.

“Yes. I’m Caitlin. It’s nice to meet you. You must be… Gia, right?” The girl nodded. “Cisco has told me about you.”

She flashed a friendly smile in Caitlin’s direction, but returned her attention to Cisco with a questioning look.

It was taking him a moment to catch on, so Caitlin casually entwined her arm with his, and things seemed to click into place. He placed his hand over the hand she had resting on his forearm and gently, if not a bit awkwardly, caressed it.

“Yeah. I’ve had this killer headache all day.”

“Oh. Alright,” she responded, scanning the ground as she collected her thoughts.

Surprisingly, the girl didn’t push for further explanation that; their little display must have been convincing enough.

It still didn’t make her leave, though, and seemed to make her more curious than anything else.

“Ah. Okay. So, uh… how did you two meet?” she asked, tilting her head to the side a bit.

“A few months ago at a bioengineering seminar,” Cisco answered, looking to Caitlin, who in turn gave him a subtle nod to continue. “Yeah, I went to broaden my horizons a little bit. Caitlin gave this amazing lecture about neurological phenomenons. It was so stimulating. She was the most brilliant person in the room that night,” he gushed, really selling the story. Caitlin was impressed. “Then again, she’s the most brilliant person in most rooms.”

“Oh, stop,” Caitlin stammered, fighting back a very real blush. Why was she blushing? He didn’t really know her well enough to mean any word that he was saying. “That may be true if you weren’t in the room with me,” she added to his vignette.

“Yeah. We got to talking and realized that we actually knew a lot of the same people.”

“You know what they say. The world is a small place,” Caitlin agreed, instinctively allowing her hand to slip into his.

Gia seemed to buy into every word of their little ruse. “It definitely is,” she said with a high-pitched chortle that sounded eerily similar to Cisco's, and bid them a good night before disappearing back into the party hall.

The two young scientists stood side by side for a moment after she left, gazing off into opposite directions, hands still linked. Their eyes met and, finally becoming all too aware of their physical contact, they broke apart in a jolt.

“Oh my god, thank you so much for that,” Cisco beamed, incredibly appreciative. He tightened his grasp around his empty glass and slouched his shoulders, appearing almost bashful.

She shook her head. “Don’t mention it. But you should probably take care of that yourself sometime.”

“There are a lot of things I should probably take care of,” he joked. “But yeah, you’re probably right. And listen, I owe you one.”

She casted a glance back at the hall through the large glass doors. A moderately mellow love song was playing and the dance floor was filled with couples and drunken party guests swaying to the melodic beat.

“Hey, Caitlin?” Cisco called, but was interrupted before he could finish what he’d began to say.

“Caity, there you are!” Celia called, emerging from the party hall onto the patio. “I have been searching high and low for you! We’re about to take some more pictures. Come, come!”

Caitlin smiled and nodded at her friend, who still managed to look absolutely radiant at the very end of the night. “I will be there in just a minute,” she assured her and proceeded to turn back to Cisco. “You were saying something?”

“Yeah. Nothing important. I was going to ask if you wanted a refill. But that can wait. You go document some memories.”

“Oh, thanks! I’ll see you inside?”

Cisco grinned again and nodded. “I’m gonna head off and find Paolo for a bit. But yeah, I’ll see you around.”

They were done with the pictures about an hour later, and by then a lot of the guests had already begun to gather up their things and head on their ways home. She’d searched the room for Cisco a couple of times, but gave up with the assumption that he’d already gone home like mostly everyone else.

As her dumb luck would would have it.

It didn’t dawn on her until she crawled into bed that night that she’d never even gotten a last name.

 

She was greeted early Monday morning with a whole new set of problems to deal with at the lab. She busied herself with paperwork and a cup of coffee, happy to return to her place in the world as Dr. Snow.

The rest of her colleagues walked in shortly after and dispersed to their own corners of the building.

“Good morning, Caitlin. How was the wedding?” Ronnie, a structural engineer on her team, asked as he began setting up his workspace.

“I didn’t really know anyone there, so that kind of sucked. But it wasn’t all that bad,” she admitted, leaving out the detail of having met someone she’d connected with at the wedding. She and Ronnie were close, so it wasn’t as though she was uncomfortable divulging such aspects of her life. But Ronnie lived to tease her about everything, and telling him about Cisco felt like giving him enough ammunition to use against her for weeks, if not months.

“Oh, yeah? What made it so ‘not that bad?’” he wondered, glancing in her direction.

“Good music. Great food. Nice people,” she said, being as broad and general as possible without technically lying.

He could obviously tell she was withholding something, but decided not to push any further at the moment, as Dr. Wells had entered the room.

“Dr. Raymond, Dr. Snow. I would like you both to meet a brand new member of our team. I hired him just this morning.”

Caitlin looked up from her paperwork and froze in her seat, nearly spilling her mug of coffee all over her desk.

“This is Dr. Ramon. He will be our new mechanical engineer,” Wells told them, then looked at Cisco. “I believe you’ll all have a lot to talk about. Young minds breed fresh and innovative thinking. I trust you two to show him the ropes. Get to know each other.”

Wells turned and exited the room then, but not first without informing them that a meeting would be held shortly.

“I’m Ronnie Raymond,” Ronnie reintroduced himself, reaching out to shake his hand. “It’s always nice to have some new blood around here.”

Had she not been completely astounded by the presence of Cisco standing six feet before her at her place of work, she’d have rolled her eyes and shot Ronnie a look. When he put it that way, it sounded weird. Like they worked for some kind of mob or drug cartel.

“I’m Cisco Ramon. It’s nice to meet you.”

He turned to look at Caitlin and smiled warmly.

“That’s Caitlin. She doesn’t talk much. All about the work. You’ll get used to it,” Ronnie explained.

Cisco stepped closer toward Caitlin and shook her hand as well. “Yeah, I know. We’ve already met actually.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Saturday,” Cisco clarified. “It is so nice to see you again. If I’m being honest, I didn’t think I would.”

Caitlin nodded in agreement. “Yes. I know. I guess this world is a whole lot smaller than we thought it was.”

A woman of science and fact, Caitlin found it hard to subscribe to things as silly and illogical as fate, but this was the kind of coincidence that novels and songs and films were written about. She pushed the thought instantly out of her mind.

Cisco laughed, and Caitlin was stunned to find herself thinking she’d almost missed that laugh. “Listen, I’m so sorry I left without saying goodbye. One of Paolo’s cousins got wasted and tried starting a fight with the photographer, so I had to make sure he got home alright.”  
“Oh, please,” she started. “You don’t owe me any explanation. Don’t worry about it.”

“No, I know. But you were nice. I was going to try to find out how to contact you through Celia when they got back from Greece, but… I guess that won’t be necessary now.”

She avoided looking over at Ronnie. He would keep his comments to himself until Cisco was out of earshot, but she was afraid of what his eyes would say.

“Let’s head on down to that meeting, hmm?” Caitlin said suddenly, a little flustered.

“‘ _Nice people_ ,’” Ronnie teased in Caitlin’s ear as he passed her on their way out into the hall, mimicking the tone of her voice terribly.

“I do not sound like that,” she whispered at him.

“You know, being as young as we are, we were bound to run into each other sometime. Just figured it would be at a seminar or something,” he mentioned casually as he walked beside her.

She looked up at him through the corner of her eye and caught his smirk. With a playful laugh, she rolled her eyes.

“Where is this meeting anyway?” he asked, scanning the space around him. She’d been in his shoes not so long ago. S.T.A.R. Labs was overwhelming to anyone at first. “Wells gave me a quick tour but even if I wasn’t as nervous as I was, I probably still would have been lost.”

“Yeah, this place is like that. I’ll give you a much more in-depth tour later if you’d like,” she promised. “But for now, it’s just right this way.”

With a half-smile and a subtle shake of the head, he quipped, “Lead the way, Dr. Snow.”

 


End file.
